Weekend Links: The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth

A love letter to letters: or, how to get your friends to actually send you a tangible piece of mail every once and awhile to give your email account a break!
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Puzzle time: twist the letters around to make new ones. Here's another twist: you have to guess all of them within a certain amount of time. How far did you guys get? I never got past level two.
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For anyone doubting that the Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth, they have seemingly taken over the one thing no one suspected: sports bars! In some pubs, Starcraft battles are taking the place of football fanaticism. Just don't expect this to become an arena event with Jumbo Trons … yet* (*until they hack it).
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After seeing, in some cases, far more flesh than I would ever want to at this year's Dragon*Con in Atlanta, this gallery of more modest fashions from past decades certainly appeals (umm … in a certain sense. Actually these costumes would fit right in at Dragon*Con!)
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Sure you've seen an infinite number of solar system models, but how many have you seen to scale? Thanks to the power of the web you can now scroll forever and a day to get through our scaled system that in real life would be spaced half a mile from end to end!
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I've spent a good portion of the week watching the "John Adams" miniseries (it's fantastic, by the way), and spent about half of that time thinking about the accents portrayed on the show. Stumbling across this article on whether or not Americans had British accents in 1776 and, either way, when and why did it change was indeed fortuitous!
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15 free and useful tech guides. BRB, downloading.
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Finally, from the Annals of Too Much Time ... it explains itself (be sure to let it fully load!)
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Stay tuned! More links on the way tomorrow - in the meantime send your finds to FlossyLinks@gmail.com. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter where I pass on links that school you in some vintage Julia Childs.

Christmas trees aren't for everyone. Some people can't fit a fir inside their cramped abodes, while others are turned off by the expense, or by the idea of bugs hitchhiking their way inside. Fake trees are always an option, but a new trend sweeping Instagram—pineapples as mini-Christmas "trees"—might convince you to forego the forest vibe for a more tropical aesthetic.

As Thrillist reports, the pineapple-as-Christmas-tree idea appears to have originated on Pinterest before it, uh, ripened into a social media sensation. Transforming a pineapple into a Halloween “pumpkin” requires carving and tea lights, but to make the fruit festive for Christmas all one needs are lights, ornaments, swaths of garland, and any other tiny tchotchkes that remind you of the holidays. The final result is a tabletop decoration that's equal parts Blue Hawaii and Miracle on 34th Street.

In need of some decorating inspiration? Check out a variety of “Christmas tree” pineapples below.